Lindsey German on US imperialism’s new ferocity and how to counter it

In the past week, Donald Trump has bombed Venezuela, kidnapped its president and brought him to prison in New York, seized millions of barrels of Venezuelan oil, intercepted a Russian-flagged oil tanker between Iceland and Scotland, told Cuba it will get no oil from Venezuela – on which it relies, said he will take over Greenland whether its people like it or not – ‘the nice way or the hard way’, and is seriously considering options for bombing Iran – allegedly to protect demonstrators protesting at their own government.

This is a US president acting in flagrant defiance of international law – not something that has bothered previous US presidents too much, given interventions from Vietnam to Grenada to Iraq – but he is also creating fear and anxiety among his allies in western Europe. They have for the most part stayed quiet on Venezuela. While they issued a weak statement saying that Greenland’s future is for the country and Denmark to decide, they will do nothing in the face of any kind of annexation or invasion which Trump seems set on.

His actions have clearly signalled the development of a new phase for US imperialism: a determination to secure the ‘western hemisphere’ for US interests in the most brutal way, and to keep out its rivals, notably China, who have interests and investments in Latin America, if necessary, by military force. It underlines the extent to which the world has become multipolar, with China’s economic and military strength increasingly seen as a threat to the US. The neoliberal ‘international rules-based order’ was always a fiction, as we have seen with open and covert interventions by the US and its allies since the end of the Cold War, and the imposition of punitive sanctions on those deemed enemies such as Russia, Venezuela, Cuba and Iran. 

However, it maintained some level of stability among the great powers. Now the picture is very different: conflict over the northern sea route in Greenland; the fourth year of the disastrous Ukraine war; the genocide in Gaza and the implications for the Middle East; conflicts in large parts of Africa, including Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Nigeria; growing militarisation of the Pacific as conflict with China grows; huge increases in arms spending across the world as Europe justifies this through the conflict with Russia over Ukraine and Japan and Australia do the same re China.

Nato has remained particularly quiet over Trump’s threats to Greenland, no doubt because any overt conflict would effectively mean the end of the military alliance, already under strain as he demands ever higher levels of arms spending from the European powers, and where he has already said that it cannot or will not defend the US.

Wars abroad have huge implications for domestic politics. We saw in the most hideous way how Trump’s wars are not just aimed at the poor and oppressed in other countries but at his own population. The raids by ICE on migrants across US cities have been met with large-scale opposition and protest. This week a 37-year-old woman activist, Renee Nicole Good, was shot in the face at point blank range by an ICE officer, as she attempted to drive her car away. Her death has provoked outrage with demonstrations across the country. The extent of division in the US is stark in the response to her death: Trump, his vice president JD Vance and right-wingers generally have defended the shooting, despite the obvious evidence that the agent was not in danger from Good at all. The FBI have taken over investigations of the killing, leading to complaints from local mayors and other officials, in an attempt to deny any democratic control to the local people who oppose the ICE raids.

These same right-wingers’ support of intervention in Iran to protect the right to demonstrate might provoke a hollow laugh both from the many Iranians who understand that Trump is not their friend, whatever they think of their own government, and from those of us here who face ever greater repression from the police and government over our right to protest. The foreign secretary Yvette Cooper sent a similar message, that the Iranian government should allow peaceful protest. So it should, but none of us should take lessons from a woman who proscribed the direct-action group Palestine Action as terrorist, and from a Starmer government which allows three remand prisoners on hunger strike to risk death rather than grant them bail.

The truth is the same people who support the wars abroad also support this repression at home, the demonisation of refugees and migrants, the criminalisation of protest, and the impoverishment of working-class people to the benefit of the very rich. These policies are both fuelling and being driven by far-right politics, and the mainstream centre or social democratic parties alike are echoing the same ideas.

My conclusions from the first two weeks of the new year are that we need to build mass movements internationally against war and imperialism, and that we need to build a left that can link these issues with the fight against austerity at home. If we don’t do that with a degree of urgency, we are in trouble.

Freedom riders – not if Labour has its way

I’m pretty sick of all the attacks on ‘boomers’ from media commentators and others about all the problems in society being the fault of my generation. Most pensioners are not well off and those reliant on state pension alone are poor. Most of my contemporaries have small pensions. The top state pension is around £1,000 a month.  So we’re not going on luxury cruises or visiting expensive restaurants. In fact more of us are staying in paid employment longer, despite having worked from the age of 15 in many cases.

One particular gripe from me is the shocking news that London councils are considering curtailing the city’s Freedom Pass. This is for all Londoners of pension age, as well as for disabled people (who they claim will not be affected but let’s wait and see) and its partial removal will be a serious attack on pensioners’ income and quality of life. It was originally usable 24/7 but now it can’t be used before 9 on weekdays, in a restriction introduced by Transport for London because of cuts in government grants and falls in usage as more people are working from home. At present it can be used on buses, tubes, Overground and the Elizabeth line as far as Reading. 

I know this will look like special pleading to many people outside London, who are not allowed to use their equivalent passes on trams or rail in their localities, or are seeing bus routes being cut all the time. But London’s transport is getting worse, and because it, like all of them, relies on a business model rather than what is needed for people’s wellbeing, this attack will lead to further deterioration. In addition, local transport should be raised to London’s best standards, not worsened everywhere.

The Freedom Pass is actually cheap, at £333m a year to administer by London councils for a city of 9 million people. Most pensioners if they use tube and rail do so in off peak hours, when trains run anyway, so there is no extra cost. Bus travel is getting ever slower in London at an average 9 miles an hour, due to more traffic, roadworks, narrowing lanes though wider pavements and cycle lanes, and closures of some roads. The poorest people in London are overrepresented on the buses, which themselves are suffering cuts in frequency and routes. So people need all the different elements of transport in London. Many pensioners also work in usually low-paid or unpaid jobs, such as childcare for grandchildren or charity volunteering. They have distant hospital appointments and relatives in other parts of the city. They also contribute to the economy by their work or by spending on leisure.

Physical and mental health benefits of being able to travel are considerable, and most pensioners would not be able to afford the fares regularly. But above all this should be the right of all pensioners who have worked and contributed all their lives. We are not wealthy ‘boomers’ and we must stop this vile division between generations, fostered by those who have attacked our rights for 40 years and now tell young people we are privileged.

This week: I am speaking on Venezuela and the threat of war on Monday for the NEU Left and on Thursday for the UCU Left. It’s crucial to get the unions involved in opposing wars and militarism. We also have a Stop the War emergency steering committee on Tuesday. And finalising writing for the second edition of A People’s History of London.